Lauren Graham Agreed To Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life Before Reading The Script
After the initial run of "Gilmore Girls" came to a relatively unceremonious end with its seventh season in 2007, fans wanted more — and nearly a decade later, they got what they asked for. In 2016, Netflix returned to Stars Hollow with "A Year in the Life," bringing those girls back to the small screen and showing, well, a year in the life of Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel).
As far as Graham was concerned, she was on board for this revival more or less immediately. In fact, she signed on without even reading the script first. In a 2017 interview with IndieWire, Graham revealed that she jumped into the project right away. "I signed on without reading any of them, and it wasn't until I sat down with these four massive scripts that I suddenly realized 'Wait... I have no idea what's in these!'" Graham said. "I mean, we had talked about the general arc, and Amy [Sherman-Palladino, the showrunner] kept asking me if I had read 'Wild,' but I didn't know why. And I was so petrified to read the fourth episode... not only because it was the last one, but also what if I didn't like where Lorelai ended up? It was a life moment for me to reach the end, too."
So where does Lorelai end up in A Year in the Life?
If you're a "Gilmore Girls" fan, you probably know why Amy Sherman-Palladino hoped Lauren Graham had read "Wild." Reeling from the death of her father Richard (the late Edward Hermann) and struggling to repair her relationship with her mother Emily (Kelly Bishop), Lorelai decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, just like Cheryl Strayed did in "Wild" (and Reese Witherspoon did in the subsequent film adaptation). Obviously, Lorelai, who has never been hiking in her life, does not do this, but she does have an emotional breakthrough, calling her mother and sharing a lovely memory of her dad.
When she returns to Stars Hollow, Lorelai heads home to her fiancé Luke Danes (Scott Patterson), who is terrified that her impromptu journey means she's going to leave him. Quite the opposite — Lorelai decides they should get married right away, and so they do. Ultimately, Lorelai gets the ending that Sherman-Palladino, who left the original series before Season 8, wanted all along. Sitting next to Rory after her wedding, Lorelai is finally happy ... and then Rory reveals that she's pregnant, leaving her mother shocked. In the end, Lorelai gets the man of her dreams and watches everything come full circle as her daughter prepares to bring another Gilmore into the world.
"A Year in the Life" and "Gilmore Girls" are both streaming on Netflix now.